Blackout automobile headlight mask



y 6., 1950 R. P. TEELE, JR

BLACKOUT AUTOMOBILE HEADLIGHT MASK 5 Sheets-Shee't 1 Filed Jan. 8, 1944 INVENTOR 5% Y TE JR.

ATTORNEY M y 6, 1950 R. P. TEELE, JR

BLACKOUT AUTOMOBILE HEADLIGHT MASK s Shets-Shet 2 Filed Jan. 8, 1944 N, mm

-H--H- JL-i- D E N m T T A INVENTOR T, P M

May 16 1950 R E JR BLACKOUT AUTOMOBILE HEADLIGHT MASK Filed Jan. 8, 1944 3 Sheets-Sheet 3 Eig. 4.

/ Z46 lNVENTOR IPAY F? TEELE/R Fig ,Wu L- ATTORNEY Patented May 16, 1950 BLACKOUT AUTOMOBILE HEADLIGHT MASK Ray P. Teele, Jr., Berkeley, Calif., assignor to the United States of America as represented by the Secretary of Commerce Application January 8, 1944, Serial No. 517,518

2 Claims.

(Granted under the act of March 3, 1883, as

amended April 30, 1928; 370 0. G. 757) The invention described herein may be manufactured and used by or for the Government of the United States for governmental purposes without the payment to me of any royalty thereon in accordance with the provisions of the act of April 30, 1928 (ch. 460, 45 Stat. L. 467).

My invention relates to means for restricting to certain zones a beam of light from a headlight of a vehicle, or from a navigational or running light carried by any water-borne craft.

It is particularly intended to supply an attachment for the usual headlight of a motor vehicle having as its primary purpose the producing of three types of beams, one for conditions of a blackout," another for use on highways visible from the ocean, and one for use in areas where the sky glow from artificial lights must be controlled.

In the accompanying drawings:

Figure 1 is a front elevation of my attachment;

Figure 2 is a vertical section on line 2-2 of Figure 1;

Figure 3 is a plan of a louver adjacent to the source of light;

Figure 4 is a plan of a second louver;

Figure 5 is a plan of a third louver.

In these drawings, Ii is a detachable cover or mask provided with an aperture l2 in the lower portion and one or more apertures l3 in the upper portion closed by a translucent plate M rigidly attached by a suitable frame l5.

For detachably mounting my attachment on a headlight of a motor vehicle or the like, I provide an adapter ring l5 having an integral outwardlyextending flange l'l adapted to be inserted between a headlight lens i8 and a lens supporting ring i9. My mask H is provided with a cylindrical flange 2!} adapted to telescope over (or under) the ring it and to be detachably and adjustably secured thereto as by a pin 2| at the bottom and a wing-headed bolt 22 passing through an elongated slot 23 into a threaded hole in ring reinforcing member 24 to support and clamp the cover on the ring.

For more precisely adjusting my cover with respect to the axis of the headlight I provide a second wing-bolt 25 bearing on a down-turned portion of the reinforcing member 24 engaged with threads of a reinforced boss 23 on my cover.

To my mask i I there is rigidly secured a housing 2'! over the aperture l2 as by a plurality of machine screws 28.

Within my housing 27 I mount a fixed lightdifiusing plate 29, a movable diffusing plate 30 having a handle 3!, and a plurality of slotted louvers 32, 33, 34 and 35, which are shown in plan in Figures 3, 4, 5 and 1, respectively.

My louver 32 is provided with the parallel slots 32!, 322, 323, 323, 325 and 323. For depressing the resultant beam of light my louver 33 is provided with the parallel slots 33!, 332, 333, 334, 335 and 338, each of which has an upper margin lower than the corresponding slot of my louver 32, and some slots in louver 33, for example 335 and 336, may be wider than the corresponding slots 325 and 323. Similarly, my louvers 34 and 35 are provided with the slots SM, 342, 343, 344, 345, 345 and 35!, 352, 353, 354, 355 and 356 respectively, having upper margins progressively lower than those of the corresponding slot of the louver nearer to the source of light. The beam of difiused light may be directed above the horizontal by revolving my device 180 degrees, whereby the corresponding slots of successive louvers will be placed progressively higher than those of louver 32. Similarly, the direction of the beam of difiused light may be directed to the left or right by turning my attachment degrees clockwise or counter-clockwise, or in any intermediate direction by a corresponding angular adjustment of my attachment.

In front of the louver 35 I prefer to mount a dirt and insect-excluding plate 36 through which the diffused light is passed, and therefore must be at least translucent and may be transparent.

As a further means of controlling the light I provide one or more horizontal bafiles 31. An additional louver, similar to the louvers 32, 33, 3 and 35 may be employed for the same purpose.

My housing may be provided with a flange 38 for holding my plate 36 while suitable spacers 39, 48, 4!, A2 and 43 and gasket 44 serve to hold my louvers in place.

In Figure 2 there are indicated by dot-anddash lines the limits of the paths for diffused light 5!, 52, 53, 54, 55 and 56.

My attachment is designed to provide a means for speedily converting headlights designed for normal peace-time driving to comply with the War Department dim-out and black-out standards and/or regulations and restrictions. Vehicles equipped with my attachment may be operated at night with a minimum of danger of aiding an enemy to destroy ships at sea, or military objectives on shore.

My attachment provides a means for producing a light beam of predictable and controlled intensity, direction and distribution as well as a.

means for at will varying the intensity of the beam by shifting the positions of the louvers and/or substituting other louvers. fhe slots in my adjacent louvers are of progressively varying lengths, 321 being the shorter and 351 being the longest of the uppermost slots.

For increasing the lighting at the edges of the beam I have deemed it advantageous to vary the sizes and relative positions of some slots, for example, by making the central portion 321 of my than that fixed by the War Department standards, louvers with smaller slits may be substituted for the standard louvers intended for general application Or the diffusion plates 29 and 39 as well as the plate 35 may be replaced with others which are less translucent. Conversely, if more 4 light intensity is desired the inverse changes may be made.

It should be understood that the present disclosure is for the purpose of illustration only, and that the invention includes all modifications and equivalents which fall within the scope of the appended claims.

I claim:

1. A mask attachment for a headlight comprising a cover plate provided with an aperture in the lower half, a housing carried on said cover plate, an external light transmitting plate aligned with said aperture and substantially parallel with said cover plate, a plurality of interchangeable louvers each provided with a plurality of apertures and differing from companion louvers in the width and positions of said apertures and assembled to restrict the passage of light to a multiplicity of directed light paths, a diffusing plate in said attachment transverse to the direction of emitted light, and a plurality of interchangeable spacers for varying the positions of one or more louvers with respect to companion louvers.

2. A mask attachment for a headlight comprising a cover plate provided with an aperture in one half, a housing carried on said cover plate, an external light transmitting plate aligned with said aperture and substantially parallel with said cover plate, a plurality of spaced interchangeable louvers each provided with a plurality of apertures and assembled to restrict the passage of light to a multiplicity of directed light paths, one or more transverse bafiles between said louvers, a diffusing plate adapted to be at will placed transversely to the source oi light and means for angular adjustment between the cover plate attaching means and said housing.

RAY P. TEELE, JR.

REFERENCES CITED The following references are of record in the file of this patent:

UNITED STATES PATENTS Number Name Date 1,428,895 Lodge Sept. 12, 1922 1,874,432 Bricker Aug. 30, 1942 1,928,539 Labastrou Sept. 26, 1933 2,102,928 Van Leunen Dec. 21, 1937 2,202,278 White May 28, 1940 2,332,470 Richards Oct. 19, 1943 FOREIGN PATENTS Number Country Date 170,362 Great Britain Oct. 14, 1921 551,212 Great Britain Feb. 12, 1943 537,084 Great Britain of 1941 542,855 Great Britain of 1942 766,967 France of 1934 

